All posts tagged: sexism

VIDEO – Ableism in the vegan movement. Intro to my talk at VegfestUK – Geertrui Cazaux

Why do we need to address ableism in the vegan and animal rights movement? This is an introduction to my talk at VegfestUK, in London, Oct 27 – 28: Ableism, bodyshaming and healthshaming, Geertrui Cazaux Transcript below. Transcript. Hello, I am Geertrui. Or, that’s Trudi in English. And I will be presenting a talk at the upcoming VegfestUK festival in London. And my talk will be about ableism in the movement. Now ableism is discrimination or prejudice against people with physical or mental disabilities. So against disabled people. Now, I can immediately hear some of you think: oh, ableism what does that have to do with veganism? Why should we be discussing this at a vegan festival? It should be about tackling speciesism. About fighting for animal rights. We shouldn’t be talking about ableism or other forms of discrimination like racism and sexism, but only focus on the animals, because it’s about the animals, right? yes, of course veganism is about tackling speciesism and about the animals, but how we deal with each other as …

Sexism and male privelege in the movement, Lisa Kemmerer at IARC

I attended the 8th International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg at the beginning of September. A very inspirational weekend, being together with activists from many different countries and attending many presentations on a broad variety of topics (program here). View this post on Instagram Great vegan sandwiches (and plenty of other stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner) at the @internationalarconference in luxembourg last weekend. 👍 🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿 #iarc #iarc2018 #vegantshirt #animalrights #animalrightstshirt #onestruggleonefight #vegan #veganfood A post shared by trudi_brugesvegan (@trudi_brugesvegan) on Sep 10, 2018 at 6:11am PDT View this post on Instagram Arrived at the International Animal Rights Conference! #luxemburg #iarc #iarc2018 #animalrights #speciesism #veganism #luxembourg @internationalarconference A post shared by trudi_brugesvegan (@trudi_brugesvegan) on Sep 6, 2018 at 11:06am PDT I found the presentation by Lisa Kemmerer on ‘Sexism and Male Pivilege among vegan activists‘ the highlight of the Conference. Lisa Kemmerer is a philosopher-activist working on behalf of nonhuman animals, the environment, and disempowered human beings. I first got to know of her work through the book ‘Sister Species. Women, animals and social justice‘. This …

Recommended literature: Animal Rights, Human Rights (David Nibert)

I recently read ‘Animal Rights. Human Rights. Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation‘ by David Nibert (2002) and found it truly inspiring. The thesis of the book is that human oppression of other animals is primarily motivated by economic interests, and is profoundly and permanently intertwined with oppression of other humans. The economic forces fueling oppression have intensified with the development of capitalism. The oppression of humans and other animals developed in tandem, each fueling the other. Nibert uses a three fold theory of oppression. This theory explains how oppressions takes place through mutually reinforcing social and economic mechanisms. There are three interactive forces: Economic exploitation, competition. The exploitation of other animals (and humans) is driven by economic forces. The motivation for the development and institutionalization of oppressive practices is primarly material, not attitudinal. Prejudice is the product of these arangements. Not the cause. The importance of power. A powerful elite (pivileged humans) uses political force over the oppressed, and they wield the power of the state. Ideological control. Oppression requires rationalisation and legitimation. Ideologies like …

Inspired by the Intersectionality Conference at VegFest, London

A couple of weeks ago, at the end of October 2016, we went to VegFest in London. This was a two day event at the Olympia Conference center, on Hammersmith Road (east London). It is not a free festival: we bought tickets in advance which were only £9 per person (buy one, get one half price). Tickets at the door were £15. We were especially interested in the Intersectionality Conference on Sunday. Arriving at the opening time of 11AM on Saturday, it became immediately clear that this is huge event! We found a long queue going round the block to get to the entrance at the west side of Olympia. We made good progress though, and after about only 10 minutes of queuing, scanning of our tickets and a security check, we could enter the venue. There were two large halls on the first floor, with dozens of stalls. The lectures were in the auditorium and conference rooms on the second floor, where there were also stalls from several NGO’s. The Olympia is a really well known venue, where …